Tea, Myself and I: Introducing the Breville Smart Tea Infuser

Growing up, I observed tea to be a ritual – never rushed. Tea leaves were selected by the season, the temperature, and sometimes, even the time of day. Aromatic spices were added for fragrance and flavour; the blends customized with cooling herbs or spicy roots. The focus was never on tea as a beverage – rather, a cup of tea was a means of achieving nourishment, comfort, and most of all, balance.

If you’re reading this, nodding your head, you may be a serious tea drinker – and you may need to be turned onto the Breville Smart Tea Infuser.The raison d’être for this small appliance is quite simple: different teas need different degrees. The Breville Smart Tea Infuser knows the right temperature and steep time to bring out the best in your favourite teas – whether you brew green, white, oolong, herbal, black – or any combination in between.

The best part? Anyone can use it. Operation of the Smart Tea Infuser is so refreshingly simple, you’ll shrug off the archaic kettle-and-tea bag routine for good. Just set the timer to tell you when steeping is complete, and the Smart Tea Infuser automatically keeps warm until you are ready to drink. Result: never over-steep your tea again.

Here are three simple steps to brewing the perfect cup of tea.

Step One: Get familiar with the Breville Smart Tea Infuser. Brewing an ideal cup of tea requires carefully steeping loose tea leaves in fresh water that’s heated correctly. The stainless steel base of the Smart Tea Infuser features an easy to read display with temperature selection for your tea type, as well as a steeping timer which beeps when the ideal steeping time elapses.Step Two: Fill the unit with fresh water. For proper operation, you must steep a minimum of two cups (500ml). Select the corresponding temperature to the type of tea you’ll be steeping, and away you go – the water will heat, quickly.

Step Three: Add tea leaves. The stainless steel tea basket holds tea leaves to steep tea with rich flavour. The unit will beep when the optimal temperature has been reached, signalling it’s time to add the tea basket. Conveniently, the top of the Smart Tea Infuser and tea basket come together with magnetic force, making it easy to grab and submerge the leaves in the water.When the Smart Tea Infuser has steeped the tea leaves for the desired amount of time, the unit will once again beep, signalling the brewing process is complete. You can enjoy your cup of tea right away, or come back up to 30 minutes later. Either way, the result will be a perfectly flavourful, comforting cup of tea.The Breville Smart Tea Infuser retails for $249.99 and is a great gift for birthdays, bridal showers, friends who love entertaining and of course, that special tea lover in your life.

Courtesy of my friends at Breville Canada, one lucky Listen to Lena reader will WIN a Breville Smart Tea Infuser! To enter, simply fill the form below with your qualifying entries. Good luck!

The whole house is mad about teas! My best friend & I used to call ourselves tea grannies in our teens for the many pots we shared. Loose leaf is my favorite way but I enjoy tea iced hot, brewed, steeped, with honey and lemon, milk or black.